


Animal Magnetism

by Tyellas



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Bathtub Sex, Eavesdropping, Ecosexuality, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Love, Mild Angst, Minor Book Spoilers, Oral Sex, Romance, Teratophilia, Vaginal Sex, slime yet again, transcendence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 15:29:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13860654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: A bad Monday at Occam has Elisa doubting. Her absence has the creature yearning. Their reunion uncovers what animal magentism is truly about.





	Animal Magnetism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PassiveGood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PassiveGood/gifts).



> From my own personal blend of the movie and the book - it's coming out in a staggered release around the world and I'm outside the United States, so...

Elisa misses him.

Today, Monday, is a day closer to when she should set the creature free. It’s dreadful to go to work when she has so little time with him left.  Now that she’s here at Occam, she’s not having a great night.

After being snapped at by Yolanda, Elisa is being chewed out by Zelda. It doesn’t help that they’re cleaning the men’s room where they first encountered Strickland. Zelda flings pucks of deodorant into the urinals like each one has personally offended her. “I know you got things happening. But I need you to _fake_ being on planet Earth with the rest of us today, Elisa! Neither of us can afford any attention after you-know-who grilling us like we were spies. I’m on my last nerve. You understand me?”

 _Yes. Sorry_ , Elisa signs. _You OK?_

Zelda sighs. “Brewster’s clocked I’ve got a life of my own, hearing me calling you up to check in. Man never takes me out but he gets jealous of a phone call. Like when we were newlyweds! Wish he’d get that animal magnetism back, too.”

It hits Elisa that the idea of a human lover is…weirdly wrong, now. Someone hot and dry and hairy, ugh! She yearns, instead, for the creature’s varied textures. His scales and plates, firm muscle and cool tenderness, the sleek slime that melts against her when she touches him.

As she thinks that, she’s afraid. Of the danger she’s drawn them all into, of losing the creature, of herself. She glances sidelong at Zelda, feeling another layer of difference slide between them. Trying to fake normal, she wipes sinks faster. Zelda nods. “That’s good. Sooner we can move on from here, the better!”

Later, Elisa eats her midnight lunch with little appetite. Strickland’s right about her. She did spy on him to learn about, and free, the creature. She’ll do it again, too, to make sure the creature, and Zelda, and herself are still all right. Once more, she takes a bucket and a rag and herself to the Signals area, near Strickland’s lair.

She’s rewarded – or maybe punished – by what she hears and sees there. Strickland’s pacing like a caged beast, his skin unhealthy, nearly gray, against his white collar, the darkness of his suit. Fleming, in his own black suit, is Strickland’s clumsy shadow. “Sir. It’s been four days? Should we alert the public? I mean, women and children may be in danger if the Asset runs wild out there.”

Strickland glares at Fleming savagely. Before he can bite the man’s head off, Strickland catches sight of Elisa. His face tightens in that private smirk, just like after he’d made that vile pass at her. Strickland’s reply is loud enough for Elisa to hear.

“Too soon. It’s an animal, all right, all savage urges. But when it attacks, it goes for the strongest. It’s some sort of freak where it counts. You get me? Don’t worry about it raping anyone.” That smirk again, right at her. “Yet.”

There is no normal with Strickland around. Elisa simply slinks away.

On the bus home, Elisa broods. Not about Strickland – he’s exactly the monster he was last week – but about the creature. Savage urges? He has been so gentle. So has she. Does he want more…wildness from her? Would that make him happy?

Possibilities crash inside her like waves. Under her skirt, she rubs her thighs together.

* * *

The creature misses her.

Time is a terrible force. Without Elisa, each moment goes by as slowly as it did in the bad cave. He looks at the last thing Elisa touched before she left her own cave. It is the white stack of squares with black marks that makes her frown. He sees, without understanding, the date: MONDAY 8 OCTOBER 1962. It means nothing to him.

The window is more rewarding. Dawn is rising outside. His latest memories, the glimmering surface of his deep being, tell him that means Elisa will be back soon.

The creature tries a visit to the distracting cave next door. Giles is asleep in front of the moving-pictures box, snoring like a tapir. Remembering he is not supposed to eat the cats - the delicious, tempting cats – the creature groans. The cats can tell he will not harm them. They are doing their best to eat him, licking at his slime. It is easier to return next door, to Elisa’s cave.

In his slow take on restlessness, the creature circuits Elisa’s apartment, drinking it all in. Elisa’s two strange dry nests. One of her bite marks in a piece of food. Her little shed skins.  Her luscious, intoxicating scent everywhere. He remembers. Not only with his fast-running thoughts, but with his body.

Thinking of Elisa sends his breathing faster. He returns to the water-cave, submerging in the little pool there. Elisa’s presence endures here, too, and memory strengthens. He has loved all his days, different aspects of the world. The emotion has been as natural and flickering, there-and-gone, as the thoughts and sights that wash over his long eons. There have been losses that sunk into his bones, for creatures or coves long gone. His love for Elisa is sharper. Surrounded by her scent, it is more poignant than wanting food or light or rest. Loving her calls for all his strength, when he is at his weakest.

Curious, the creature runs a hand between his own legs, as Elisa does to herself. It does little for him. Desire is predicated on the beloved’s existence, their presence. He had only had flickers of carnal yearning until the enchantment of Elisa. For now, there is the sense that desire is waiting, the hunger beyond hunger to be with her again – however closely she wishes it, when she returns.

Water carries sound. He hears when her feet, in their tough little covers, tap their way near, arriving. The creature inhales deeply, again and again, preparing for a time in the air and dry.

* * *

Arriving at the Orpheum, Elisa peeks in at Giles. He’s sacked out in front of the TV. Quietly, she feeds his cats, then locks his door. Before she enters her place, she removes her red jumper and her wool coat, conscious of their dry mammal roughness. She’s glad she picked a silky blouse today. She enters.

The creature is standing there, waiting for her, slightly stooped, as if shy of his great greenish-dark height. He yawps in pleasure. His presence sweeps away all her doubts. Without reserve, Elisa flings herself against him and wraps his trim waist in her arms.

For the creature, the cruel passage of time melts away. Elisa is there, and he is whole again. His mind calms, his heart is soothed, and his body-hunger sharpens pleasurably. It is the moment of the hunter’s success, exquisitely prolonged from the moment he feels his beloved touch him until their final joy. He lets his body speak how he feels.

Elisa gasps as she is grasped in turn, his huge hands soaking her blouse, then the back of her knees. She’s being picked up! With her shoulders cupped by one hand, and her calves by his other, he folds her and scoops her to him, crooning. Delighted, she wraps her arms carefully around his neck, nuzzling the fins there. She only sways a little as he takes them both to the place where they make love the most, her bathroom.

The creature can tell: Elisa has been to the bad cave today. Its smells are strong on her. More, he feels that she was hurt there. Her energy is small and tight. He strokes her as he takes her to the best place, the water. When they get there, she wriggles to be put down. He does so at once. Sensibly, she begins to remove the extra skins she wears, stripping herself of the bad cave smells, exposing her defenseless flesh. She does not light up, but she is so pale, in the dawn, that she is nearly luminous to his vivid vision.

Elisa considers that they have made love four times, by now. But her determination has her nervous. She doesn’t know if he needs her to be wild or if she needs to be wild, herself. Perhaps both. She tosses her clothes out into the main room and meets his eyes. Briefly, she strokes his collar-bones, as she did the first time they came together. Her touch laces luminance through his skin, not as vividly as that first time. She steps back to run both hands down her torso, to her hip bones, then lifts them in an open gesture. What would a woman, a beautiful woman, say in the movies? _Take me,_ she signs. _I am yours._

He marvels at Elisa’s offering presence. She signs towards herself and to him. Light and shadow play in her hair. The thousand angles and softnesses of her body beckon: a flush on her cheekbones that makes them compelling tonight. Her scent draws him close, despite her tang of fear and hurt. Like him, she wants to be more whole. Together. Then she makes one of her astounding moves.

For the first time with the creature, Elisa wishes she was pin-up pretty, strong and full and lovely, the type to fill out a leopard-skin bikini. Even if she can’t ever look like that, she can act like it. Running her hands back up herself, she turns to her sink and leans over, offering herself from behind, from the waist down. Shyly, she opens her legs a little. The idea of him taking her from behind like that, splitting her with his amazing shaft, quickens her breathing.

The creature hears his own moan of amazement. This is yet another new angle of Elisa. When most humans bend like this, it means they fear, or feel pain. Elisa is fierce and waiting and trembling like light on water. The skin she offers is as delicious as her aroused smell. She likes so many touches. Remembering them all fills him to overflowing. He will give her as much, at once, as he can, to bring them together.

Elisa feels herself shaking as the creature steps up behind her, still moaning. Oh, he does want it like this, he’s going to do it, take her from behind like a – wait. Elisa feels his hands brushing her thighs, then her calves, the breadth of him against the back of her legs. She tips herself up to peer backwards. He is kneeling behind her, sliding his hands around to the front of her thighs. Just as she’s wondering what he’s going to do, he lowers his head, and she finds out.

He knows Elisa likes it when she is pressed to him, so he leans his chest and body against her slender limbs. She likes it when he touches her thighs, so he sends his hands around them, to stroke the insides with his finger-tips, so carefully. And she loves it when he tastes her. So he unhinges his jaw and slides his tongue between her legs, from the fascinating, tender juncture where her legs meet her hips, into her wet mating zone. It is good. And he feels her energy unfurl at last, to match her scent and overflow her skin.

Elisa’s back over the sink, reeling. His cool slime soothes her, his fin ruffles tickle the cheeks of her behind. And the tip of his long, nubbled, impossible tongue is probing her, opening her cunt. Oh, God. He is a god, some different being with different powers, for no human could do this at all. No animal would be this tender and patient. She’s the animal here, flushed with her own heat, thrusting back against him on her tiptoes, desperate for more of his goodness.

He tilts his head to expose his small nostrils for breathing. Tonight Elisa wants so much, so quickly. She needs pleasure the way prey, in the hunter’s grasp, wants to be killed. Remembering that makes him crave home. He burrows back into her beloved heat and wet and rich fragrance, finding as much home as he can here, in that new bliss, their shared arousal.

Elisa is shaking her head from side to side, barely touching the sink, rocking back against him. She feels every slip of what he’s doing, every place he’s touching her. If she had any voice, she’d be screaming. He’s almost penetrating her with that incredible tongue and just barely flicking her clit. The in-between-ness is driving her mad. With an effort, she pulls herself forwards, away. Behind her, his bereft croon crushes her heart. Fast as she can, she turns around and kneels down to his level.

It should be all awkwardness, two strange beings crouching on a cracked tile floor. Yet they drift together with the slow grace of dancers. Elisa parts her knees, makes one sign, and slides two fingers to part her labia, open, ready, offering. The creature sighs in absolute fulfilment and takes hold of her shoulders with one hand, her behind with the other. As he lifts her again, Elisa reaches down and strokes between his legs. The secret pressure there is relieved at long last. His shaft rises free, following her touch. He poises her. She grasps him. They guide their bodies together. When they are joined, the creature utters a deep, vibrating cry, and gently turns Elisa to lie beneath him.

There is one moment when they both feel. Elisa is between the hard chill of her bathroom floor and the living coolness of his body. She could relax against him if it wasn’t that his cock, deep and wide and slime-slick inside her, brings back her near-animal frenzy. She arcs her body against his length and shoulders, and rocks her hips up, begging him wordlessly to move. 

Being inside her always sweeps the creature away. Elisa’s body is tender and tight and so very, very hot, a dark sun of desire, the fine electricity of Elisa being alive heating his blood. He feels her pulse twice: in her chest beneath his, and throbbing in the parts wrapped around him. Their fluids blend. Nothing in all his eons has ever felt so good as this. Together. He rocks into her.

Elisa releases one hand from him as he takes her, signing into the empty air: _yes yes yes yes yes!_ He’s curled around her so he doesn’t crush her, but her cunt is alive with fullness and friction. She spreads wider, encouraging him to thrust hard, harder. A string of climaxes, like firecrackers, sets her shuddering and writhing, lit up and on fire inside. _Don’t stop,_ she thinks, _please never stop._ It feels like the universe itself chides her for her greed when she bangs her head on the bathroom’s baseboards.

Her little jolt of pain stops the creature. Her body had absorbed him so much he paid no attention to how they slid along the floor. As Elisa opens her eyes, dazed and flushed, still hot as lightning-fire, he knows she needs more. She is strong enough for it – but he is not. Not until they are in the water. With a yawp of warning, he scoops her up, kneeling upright, and points towards the tub.

Water! He needs the water! Elisa slips off him at once (her body shudders, mourns) and helps him up, into the tub. Blessedly, he reaches for her while he gets in, urges her to mount him. Like she did their first time together. When he is submerged in place, knees up, she straddles him. It’s her turn to bring them together, to start the motion of that oldest, fiery dance.

They are as close as they can possibly be, in both their elements at the same time. Even this small pool of water welcomes him. The flow through him focuses on his link to Elisa, sets it thick and throbbing, water’s current to match her heat and life. She needs what he needs, and he can give it, now. He takes the water in, feels himself inside Elisa, collects all that he is.

Once more, Elisa tells herself, only once more and then she’ll make him come. He is heaving under her, inhaling with both lungs and gills. She feels him go wide and hard inside her and she’s there again. It’s so heavenly, she’s deaf and burning as well as mute, it’s all so, so –

He comes.

The pulsing flood of it sweeps Elisa away. Sealed together by his milt, vibrating from his deep ecstasy, she is washed in his luminance, bright enough that it flashes behind her closed eyes. Greenish light, the way he must see light through the water. And she knows what he knows. They are both animals, both sentient, both gods. They are alive together. There is no separation from each other, nor from the world. She is speared by it, paralyzed, dazzled. She stays poised, swaying on top of him, until his body goes lax beneath her, and his shaft shrinks in retreat.

Elisa swallows. She is crying, tears sheeting down her face. She did her best for years not to cry. She was over it. It wasn’t any use. Then, she’d met the creature, who had brought her back tears, desire, the knowledge that had hard human life had worn away. Blinking, she dashes tears aside. Beneath her, the creature has his most beatific expression, his almost-smile. His look of love.

The creature opens himself to Elisa, lets her nest against him. He throbs with receding pleasure, rising exhaustion. It is good that she has what she needed, though it has drained him to the core like a great battle. He feels her hot tears, her own water, the sweet-noted sadness of her. Yes. That is how it is, when the hunt is done, the prey is lovingly consumed, the waiting of life resumes. This is deeper, so the grief of it is deeper, too. The love behind it all remains. He remembers that from the past, and, with his new awareness of time, he senses some of the future.

Elisa will go back to the bad cave soon. She will return. Then – he is not sure. All he knows is that they will not be parted again. He cannot perceive how. But they will always be together, whether in earth and darkness or light and water.


End file.
